sputnik-moment

Noun

(uncountable)

The moment that a country or a society, in particular the US, realizes that it needs to catch up with the apparent technological and scientific gap that exists between it and some other country, increasing its investment efforts into education and innovative R&D.

Origin

In reference to the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite Sputnik 1, which caught US unprepared, eventually igniting the Space Race within the Cold War which US ultimately won in 1969 with the first human landing on the Moon.